#I can only novelize one RPG

[bmpmp3]

thank god for indie devs making like tiny little maximum 10 megabyte freeware games on itchio keeping the art of filesize optimization alive. ASSET REUSE FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#im watching a video about wario land music -> 'the bizarre music and sound design of wario land 4' by geno7 #good video so far! i like this guys stuff. he talked a bit about how they did some of the sound effects for warios voice #a very like. chopped and remixed sample style of doing his vocal lines. which is very cool 1) because it saves a bit of #precious space on that gba cartridge BUT ALSO 2) it just sounds cool and interesting stylistically #and man sometimes trying to keep a file size down really does give way for some really interesting stuff #on my own personal interests in games i ADORE rpg makers rtp and how people can find creative uses for it #i love that a bunch of games can draw from the same asset pool as one install on ur computer #no bloating your hardrive with a bunch of copies of the same assets - its just already here! #and from a developers perspective i love when they reuse old assets from other games in new weird ways #some small visual novel companies will reuse backgrounds and other assets #altho i dont mind a bit of bloat with VNs since a big draw can be the big pretty images and big pretty sounds #but its still cool when people find ways to get creative with space saving. and from a players perspective its also nice #space is cheap nowadays. but its not Free. we can swallow terabytes whole with micro sds and everything #but a lot of players dont get the chance or ability to upgrade their internal memory that often. so i think being considerate of filesize i #very important. and thats not even getting into the download bandwidth limits - a lot of people all across north america can only get like #internet from 1 provider and that 1 provider often likes to upcharge and limit shit because they can #we might live in a future where a lot of powerful technology exists. but access to that tech is another story #so remember the filesize. remember the filesize. #dies in your arms

[jonnywaistcoat]

Hi Jonny, if you don't mind I have a question about the TMA TTRPG! So I noticed that on the player's guide there's this guy, who my friends and I assumed is probably Jon. If it is him, is this a canon design, or more like some of the non-canon stuff that's in the merch?

So, I hope you don't mind if i use this ask to go a bit off on one. I'm not specifically dragging you (I'm actualy glad you asked, as I've thinking about posting on the topic), but all the discussion around the RPG art and how "official" or "canon" it might be is, to my mind, slightly silly.

First up, is it "official" art? I mean, yeah, its art for the officially licenced Magnus Archives RPG. This means Monte Cook Games have commissioned someone to do a beatiful illustration broadly based on some aspect, episode or character from the podcast and it goes in the book. But that's kinda all it means. "Official" is a legal distinction, not an artistic one. The fact that it's in an official product doesn't make it any less one artist's cool interpretation of a character that has only been vaguely described in audio.

Second, is it Jonathan Sims the Archivist? I mean, it's probably based on the idea of him, but it's certainly not set in stone. When we were first discussing art with MCG, we advised that character pictures be more vibes-based and not explicitly tied to specific people (ie. a portrait inspired by Tim wouldn't be captioned "This is Tim" and wouldn't be placed opposite a profile for Tim Stoker, archival assistant.) This was mainly because we wanted the artists to have plenty of freedom to interpret and not feel too tied down by the need to know everything about the podcast. But, to be frank, it was also because we know that there are a few fans out there that are kinda Not Chill about what they've personally decided these characters look like and can get a bit defensive over depictions that differ.

It strikes me as particularly strange to be having this discussion about art that's for a roleplying game book. Something that's explicitly and solely designed to give you the ability to play in your version of the Magnus universe. The idea that this is the thing where we'd for some reason try to immutably establish unchangable appearances for these characters would be pretty funny if some folks weren't taking it so seriously. Similarly ridiculous is the idea we could reasonably have said to MCG "We'd love for you to make a huge beautiful RPG book of our setting... Just make sure you don't depict any of the iconic characters or events from it!"

But... is it "canon"? Now, to my mind, this highlights a real weakness in a lot of fandom thinking around "canon", which is that it generally has no idea what to do with adaptations. All adaptation is interpretation, and relies on taking a work and letting new creatives (and sometimes the same ones) have a different take on it. Are the appearances of the Fellowship of the Ring in the LOTR movies "canon"? How much, if at all, does that matter? Neil Gaiman's book Neverwhere was originaly a 90s BBC series made with a budget of 50 pence; is anyone who makes fanart of Mr Croup that doesn't look like the actor Hywel Bennet breaking canon? What about the novel that describes the character differently? Or the officially licenced Neverwhere comic where he looks like neither of them? Which is his "canon appearance"?

Canon is an inherently messy concept, and while it is useful for a creative team trying to keep continuity and consistency within a creative work, for thinking about anything beyond that it tends to be more hinderance than help.

Anyway, all this is to say that the above picture and all the others in the RPG are exactly as canon as every other picture you've ever seen of the Archivist.

#sorry for the huge answer #been thinking about it a lot recently #and wanted to get my thoughts down

[dalishious]

A BioWare Guide on How to Murder a Fanbase

I have been a Dragon Age super-fan for almost fourteen years, now. I have played every game, with every DLC. I have read every novel, lore book, and every comic — yes, even the terrible ones that are better off forgotten. I have seen the anime film, the animated series, and the web mini-series. I have enjoyed all of these pieces of the franchise over and over, more times than I can count. So, make no mistake: the negativity you’re about to hear comes from a place of love for this fantasy world, developed by many creative people over the years. I would love nothing more than to see the resurrection of passion in the Dragon Age fandom again. But the unfortunate truth is, that resurrection is only needed because BioWare took the fandom out back and shot it in the first place.

In December 2018, three years after the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Trespasser epilogue DLC, BioWare first announced the then-untitled next Dragon Age game with a teaser trailer. At this point, most fans were anticipating this would mean within the next couple years, we would see the game. This assumption was based on the fact that Dragon Age: Inquisition was first announced in 2012, and released in 2014, with an extra year of development added last minute.

There have been dribbles of extra content since then, adding to the franchise. This was enough to keep some fans still breathing and interested. 2020’s Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights was a lovely anthology. 2020’s Dragon Age: Blue Wraith and 2021’s Dark Fortress were wonderful comics tying up the story started in Knight Errant. And 2022’s Dragon Age: Absolution was a well-animated series with an interesting cast of characters and story. But all these still left the fandom with a major question: What was going on with the next game? It was untypical of BioWare to be so secretive, in comparison to how they handled sharing information of the past games in the franchise. The only form of updates fans still have to go on is mostly just concept art and short stories, hinting that something must be in production. But why was the wait so long?

In 2015, the first version of the next Dragon Age began with a clear vision, clear scope of practice, and a reportedly happy developer team. Most gloriously in my book, there was no multi-player… but this did not align with the Electronic Arts typical money-mad schemes. EA’s push for “games as a service” meant they wanted to monetize all their games as much as possible, and therefore, they wanted them to be a live service — as Anthem demonstrated, that meant sacrificing things that are staples of good RPGs, like narrative and character choice. So in 2017, version one of the next Dragon Age was scrapped and replaced. This new version would have, in total or to at least some degree, an online portion of play.

There is one part of Schreier’s article, “The Past and Present of Dragon Age 4,” that really sticks out to me, regarding this:

“One person close to the game told me this week that Morrison’s critical path, or main story, would be designed for single-player and that goal of the multiplayer elements would be to keep people engaged so that they would actually stick with post-launch content.”

The idea of splitting up components of a game into single-player and multi-player is a terrible idea, because it means that there would be a large bulk of content only accessible through online gaming; something many fans, like myself, are repulsed by. Even if I did enjoy it, I spent most of my life growing up with either no internet or shoddy internet incapable of playing online games. I know many rural people who are still in that position, losing more and more of their favourite gaming pastimes because they are locked out of the ability to play them. It is a disservice to hide content behind a wall like this, especially in a world that is so lore-heavy like Dragon Age. The news of multi-player in Dragon Age understandably upset many, and this is when I first noticed a large drop off in excitement over the next game.

However, in 2021, the failure of Anthem (multi-player) and success of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (single-player) led the executives at EA to bend to the wishes of BioWare leadership and allow them to go back to the drawing board yet again on the next Dragon Age. This meant removing all multi-player content!

While I am very happy that there will reportedly be no multi-player in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, I can’t help but feel bitter and a little disgusted over the ridiculous development time spent on something no one but EA wanted in the first place. If it weren’t for this foolishness, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf would be in our hands right now. Instead, it’s been in development hell for nearly nine years and counting. Nine years is a long time to expect fans to carry a torch for you through radio silence, but it’s no wonder BioWare has shared barely anything about the next game; it’s been in flux for so long, they likely haven’t had anything concrete to show.

BioWare hurt its reputation even more when the news broke that the studio very suddenly laid off 50 people who were working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. This is pretty damning on its own, but BioWare took it a step further. Former developer Jon Renish shared a statement revealing that the studio was only willing to offer laid-off employees two weeks of severance per year of service, and denied health benefits. The denial of health benefits in particular is a pretty wild move for a studio with a reputation for “stress casualties”. The latest news on this is that BioWare has still so far refused to negotiate better severance packages, leading to a lawsuit. The lawsuit originally had 15 former employees, but this dropped due to the fear of not being able to afford to pay their bills. So now, while EA sits on $400 million net income, the laid-off employees are struggling to buy holiday presents for their children. These horrid business practices are not to be ignored when accounting for a lack of faith in a studio. What kind of monsters reward workers who make your games special with vaguely reasoned lay-offs?

The latest news on the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf front from BioWare came early this month, December 2023, with a trailer… announcing a trailer that will come next summer… that will announce the release of the game. Supposedly. Maybe. We’ll see. But by this time, BioWare is something of a laughing stock of their own fandom. Reactions to the video released with a pretty map graphic and a few rendered locations were, from what I personally observed, mostly sardonic in nature. People have commented on the vapourware nature of the game, and like all vapourware, that leads to disintegrating trust.

Despite all this, people like Mary Kirby, (one of the veteran Dragon Age writers who was a victim of the layoffs,) said, “it’s bittersweet that Dreadwolf is my last DA game, but I still hope you all love it as much as I do,” encouraging fans to still support the game when it eventually is released. But after every misstep BioWare has taken, that’s a tough sell now. Fans are finicky, RPG fans more so than others, one could argue. We have our favourites, and many of us stick to those favourites for life over our appreciation for the artistry — but that relationship between studio and fan should go both ways. EA and BioWare has betrayed that relationship, and it will take a hell of a lot to build it back up again, now.

[This piece is also available on Medium!]

#dragon age #dadw #dragon age dreadwolf #bioware #game development #meta #releasing this into the wild and running away

[ponett]

with the fallout of bandai namco's idiotic "it's up to interpretation" bs, do you think that it's possible to enjoy queer media made in a corporate environment in addition to independent works? is it even worthwhile to attempt making queer media in a corporate environment? i find it special how well the g-witch production team managed to tell the story they wanted even with the challenges and pressures they faced, but i have to admit that independent works like slarpg are always going to more completely tell queer stories. as someone who has resonated with both slarpg and g-witch, i was curious to know your perspective.

i'm probably less cynical about this than a lot of my peers are - not that i can blame anyone for feeling cynical about queer rep from corporate-owned media. (we've been through so many First Ever Gay Disney Characters at this point, and lord knows blizzard loves to tease that another overwatch character might be gay every year or so as a PR move.) unfortunately it's just extremely hard to get something like a full season of an animated series funded and produced independently, so the artists looking to enter these fields and pour their hearts and souls into meaningful queer stories as a full-time job don't have many options

going indie gives you theoretically endless creative freedom to tell your stories without corporate censorship, but it's also a massive gamble. only an extreme minority of indie creatives in any medium are actually able to make a living. the fact that i came out the other side of slarpg's development with enough money that i can keep being a full-time indie instead of being in massive debt makes me one of the lucky ones. and even with my modest success, i sure as hell don't have the money to hire a whole team, which limits the scope of what i can make. so i can't turn my nose up at the queer people writing disney channel cartoons where they can't say the word "gay" out loud. they have health insurance, i don't. for most people, what i do is simply not an option

with the corporate-produced Queer Stories i enjoy, i'm often able to squint and see what the creatives were trying to do, wishing that they could have done more while understanding that they probably had to fight tooth and nail for what's there

in the realm of children's animation in particular, i'm thankful that the people working at these studios ARE fighting for more, because it means that kids today have so many more positive queer stories to relate with. i didn't have a single gay character i felt i could relate to until i read scott pilgrim at age 16 and saw wallace wells. before that, i felt so alone in the world. i denied who i was for years because it felt like there would be no place for me. i didn't know anyone openly gay in real life, growing up in the south, and in fiction gay people either existed as the butt of a joke or not at all. the fact that queer kids are now able to see people like themselves in so many shows means something, even if we still have a long way to go and the big studios continue to be a major obstacle

on the subject of g-witch, i'm honestly unfazed by the statement from bandai-namco. i guess i wish they could've let suletta and miorine kiss, but like... the text of the show is extremely blunt about them being a couple by the end. it's not up for debate. and it's not like a gundam series having a meaningful story in spite of the wishes of the toy-producing overlords is anything new, this is just our latest example

all that being said, i do think people should branch out more and explore more weird indie shit if they want more wholeheartedly, openly queer stories. people gotta suck it up and embrace more outsider art instead of only valuing things with studio-level production values. start looking at ren'py visual novels, rpg maker games, obscure webcomics, zines drawn in sharpie, artists on bandcamp who aren't signed to a label, all that jazz. maybe part of the reason why i'm not more fazed by the state of affairs with corporate-funded fiction is that i'm constantly surrounded by furry artists who are telling their own little gay stories

#tamamayfox #ask

[howtofightwrite]

Clothes Followup

Hi there. Professional sportswear outfitter and part-time athelete here just chiming in on how these choices are perfectly believable, in my humble opinion: #1 SHOES "sneakers" is a loose definition. but, if the character is wearing casual/lifestyle "sneakers" like jordan lows, vans, etc., these type of shoes are FLAT (not narrow running shoes). Flat soled sneakers are often preferred training shoes for mixed arts or lifting at the gym. You could wear boots, but you're sacrificing agility. As a female, I can say that a female character likely would not inflict such a handicap as BOOTS on herself. Feet are very resilient and resistant to pain and injury. Being able to move on your feet matters a lot more than protecting them does. PASS #2 PANTS. you are not punching someone's pants while boxing. and have you watched fight club? they mostly wear jeans. they're durable, wick moisture (although it feels unpleasant), and if they're fitted properly, they're not going to get in the way of your agility. Jeans are light armor if you're speaking in tabletop rpg terms. PASS #3 SHIRT. a good tshirt of a decent quality will wick moisture, will not be bulky or baggy, and will move with its wearer. tshirts are not expensive and are the best option outside a sleeveless top or topless for martial arts. Especially if you have boobs. Boxing in only a racerback sports bra is also viable, but a tshirt will provide light protection to the skin, which is a good idea in amateur boxing. If they're WEARING GLOVES, nobody is grappling anyone's shirt so there is no risk of clothes-grabbing violations happening there. If this ring is literally underground, it's probably cold. Clothes can be shed between matches, but it's often more important to be clothed appropriately so as to prevent both overheating and chills. Becoming chilled between fights is a greater danger to performance than getting sweaty is. PASS I also have questions as to the type of boxing gloves being used. Are they full padded gloves? Light knuckle pads? Do the boxers wear headgear? Mouthguards? What areas are allowed to be hit or is it a free-for-all? Maybe you think these details are mistakes, but I disagree. Half my job is punching boxes all day. Hot, sweaty, fully clothed, wearing comfortable shoes. Lots of moving around. If I am going to punch boxes (or faces) for hours, that's exactly how I'd dress. The rest of my job? Literally outfitting people with boxing equipment. Literally selling people clothing for athletics. I am also a footwear specialist. Thank you for taking the time to read this. :) -lilkittay

So, apologies in advance, lilkittay, but you're about to get dragged. This might come as a shock, but I actually have a copy of the novel Fight Club. I just found it wedged between a copy of Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson, and the Demolished Man by Alfred Bester. I'm not going to try to figure out what lead to that sorting peculiarity. The book is exceptionally good, and if you've never read it, it's an easy (if somewhat unpalatable) recommendation. Stick it up there with books like Native Son, or Ivan Denisovich, in that it covers some really ugly subject matter, but discusses a problem exceptionally well. And, in the 27 years since the novel was originally published, it has proved itself fairly prescient. It's not about the violence, it is an excellent discussion on the underlying psychology of toxic masculinity.

Now, the last time I mentioned Fight Club, someone immediately piped up with, “you've lost all credibility.” That's their problem, but I didn't actually define it, and it is a term that gets thrown around without being defined. Toxic masculinity refers specifically to an individual who cannot engage with their own emotions, particularly painful ones, in a healthy way, because they view those behaviors as effeminate. As a result, they respond aggressively and, or, violently. That's the toxic part. You get dumped. Your pet dies. You get passed over for a promotion at work. And, instead of dealing with that in a healthy way. In any healthy way. You go out into the world and try to make someone else suffer. That is toxic.

Unfortunately, Fight Club is not the grown up version of Calvin and Hobbes, though that is an amusing fan theory, and something that holds together better in the film thanks to Brad Pitt's costuming decisions.

I'm saying all of this to point out, the characters in Fight Club have no idea how to fight.

More than that, jeans are not light armor. Motorcycle leathers? Sure, those would be light armor. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're described as light armor in D20 modern. But, the only place I'd expect to see denim categorized as light armor is a game that used, “light armor,” for mage gear, “medium armor,” as rogue's leather and chain, and, “heavy armor,” as warrior gear. Which is to say, yeah, that's not how that works at all.

The problem with jeans as armor is, they're really bad at it. Someone with a crowbar? Yeah, jeans aren't going to do anything about that. Someone with an axe? I've heard about the aftermath, it was not pretty. Against a sword? Nope. Against a knife? Personal experience says the knife will win without issue. In an underground fighting arena against someone driving a shin kick into your knee? Yeah, your jeans may look fine after the fact, but you're probably not using that leg again anytime soon.

But, that RPG comment made something click together a little, so back to footwear for a second.

Why would someone wear boots? Now, personally, I wear motorcycle boots in my day to day life. Not because I'm a rider, but because I find them more comfortable and convenient than normal dress shoes, and so long as I keep them buffed out, they pass for men's dress shoes at a glance. The interesting thing about this is that my heel has a wide, flat, block of wood under it at all times. If it was a matter of life and death, I could probably grind off a significant chunk of my heel bringing a bike to a stop without suffering any injury. Now, I bring this up, because driving 200-300lbs of force behind a sharply edged wooden mallet into your unarmored instep will not improve your agility.

In the real world, armor doesn't work like D&D. There's no equivalent exchange between mobility and being able to soak a hit. (And if you think there's an irony in substituting a term from one RPG for another... well, yeah. You're not wrong.) If you think someone's going to stomp on your foot, bring steel toed boots. What you lose in agility today, you make up for in your ability to walk without a cane tomorrow.

The paradox of humans is that we are both stupidly resilient, and horrifically fragile, at the same time. Now, at this point, I do want to say something genuinely nice to you, even if it sounds a tiny bit condescending. You've never looked at another person as 150-250lbs of ambulatory meat and considered the best way to take them apart with your hands. And you know what? That is a good thing. Embrace that, and don't let go, because never finding yourself in that kind of a place is a credit to you, and the world you've been able to live in.

All of that said, fighting another human being is not a workout. It's engineering. You're looking at an organic machine with roughly the same parts and pieces you have, and your goal is to make that machine stop thrashing around, screaming, and leaking on everything, before it does the same to you. It's not better. It's not worse. It's different, and it comes with different considerations. You don't dress to look good or stay comfortable, you dress to avoid life altering injuries if at all possible.

Competitive fighting does land at a meeting point of these two considerations however. The fighter wants to come out intact, the sponsors want good show, one that will draw an audience. This leads to things like fighting in a sports bra. Yes, it may be the most, “agile,” option, but if you're going to be in a fist fight, a heavy leather jacket, preferably one with fiberglass plates may not breathe, but it will take far more abuse than your body can. (Actually, I think sometimes the inserts are made out of memory foam these days, which should also take a hit pretty effectively, especially against an unarmed foe.)

This isn't a major issue, but it is something to consider, when thinking about the temperature of the arena, it's important to remember that human body heat in a crowded space is somewhat cumulative. So, a room that starts out at around 60 degrees, could easily warm up to a comfortable temperature once the spectators are present. There's actually consistent math for calculating what you should set the thermostat for in an amphitheater when it's unoccupied so that the temperature is comfortable when the seats are filled, but I can't remember the numbers, and can't find it on short notice.

You do bring up a good point, the original Anon did not specify what kind of gloves were used. I assumed those were nominally regulation boxing gloves, but those could be something like the UFC gloves from a couple decades back, that left the fingers exposed while armoring the knuckles. The armor on those gloves allowed the wearer to inflict all kinds of horrific injuries on one's foes. In an event Michi is quite happy to recount, her younger brother almost lost an eye to a skull fracture from one of those during a poorly supervised sparring bout. It's fairly credible to suggest that an illegal fight club might use those simply to excite the crowds with actual bloodshed.

Now, as someone who has worked in shipping, I know full well that sometimes boxes do hit back. However, they are the exception rather than the rule. There's nothing wrong with practicing on punching bags, but boxes aren't trying to break you. At worst, they may just want to take a nap on the floor without regard to whether you're in the way or not. Live opponents? They're looking at you as however many pounds of meat machinery, and trying to end you. Looking good doesn't make their job harder, but armoring up does.

Anyway, like I said to the original Anon, nothing in their explanation was outright wrong. A lot of it was non-optimal, but not to such a degree as to shatter belief. The mistake you're making, and I really do say this with respect, is that you're looking at it like any other physical activity. As I said, combat is not a work out. Combat as a hazardous environment beyond the reach of OSHA. You wear protective gear (if you can) because that protection may be the difference between walking out alive and (basically) unharmed, or never walking again. You wouldn't (or at least, really shouldn't) take a bike out on the freeway at 60mph in jeans and a tees, you really don't want to get in a fight wearing them either.

-Starke

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#writing reference #writing advice #writing tips #starke answers #how to fight write #martial arts

[carlyraejepsans]

If you are going to make a game here’s some things that might be helpful!

Game engines:

Godot: very new dev friendly and it’s free. Has its own programming language (GDscript) but also supports C#. It’s best for 2D games but it can do 3D also.

Unity: I don’t even know if I should be recommending Unity. It has caused me much pain and the suffering. But Unity has an incredible amount of guides and tutorials. And once you get the hang of something it’s hard to get caught on the same thing again. It also has a great Visual Studio integration and uses C#. I will warn you the unity animator is where all dreams go to die. It’s a tedious process but you can probably get some plugins to help with that.

Unreal: Don’t use it unless you’re building a very large or very detailed 3D game. It also uses C++ which is hell.

Renpy: Made for visual novels but has support for small mini games. It only supports Python iirc. Basically if you’re making a VN it’s renpy all the way otherwise you should look elsewhere.

What to learn: Game design and how to act as your own game designer. As a designer you need to know if a part of your game isn’t meshing with the rest of it and be willing to give up that part if needed. Also sound design is very important as well. If you want to make your own sounds audacity is perfect for recording and cutting up your clips. If you want to find sound effects I recommend freesound.org and the YouTube royalty free music database.

Sadly I can’t recommend a lot of places to learn this stuff because I’m taking Game Development in Uni. So most of my info comes from my lectures and stuff. One of my game design textbooks is pretty good but it’s around $40 CAD. It’s called the game designers playbook by Samantha Stahlke and Pejman Mirza-Babaei if you’re interested (fun fact there’s a photo of Toriel in there)

Anyway sorry for dumping this large ask on you I’m just really passionate about game design and I like to see other people get into it.

please do not apologize I'd never heard half of this stuff so this is super useful!! I've seen some godot tutorials on YouTube although so far I've played around with RPG maker MV (it was on sale. very very fiddly interface, i had trouble getting around it) and gamemaker, which recently became free for non-commercial use (a lot more approachable on first impact but like i said, haven't really done anything substantial in either yet).

mostly, I'm still in the super vague stage. I've got an idea for the main story conflict, the protagonist and their foil, the general aesthetic i want to go for (likely 2D graphics, but it would be cool to make like. small cutscenes in low-poly 3D) but not much else. haven't exactly decided on the gameplay either! it's gonna necessarily be rpg-esque, but I'm not much of a fan of classic turn-based combat so. I'm gonna check out other games and see if i can frankenstein anything cooler :P

#like for example. if i were ever to make a daemo game (knock on wood) i was thinking that it would work out quite well #if i made it a PUZZLE rpg kind if game. since the player character is no longer frisk/chara/connected to the player #and daemo doesn't really have any reason to 1) be possessed or 2) go on murderous rampages #so with a base game like undertale where those ARE crucial parts of player-world interaction I'd have to redirect it elsewhere #it being player input in the story #but I'm not sure puzzles are quite the solutions for this other story....... we'll see #answered asks #SAVE point #thank you so much!

[aaronsrpgs]

"Ancient World Fantasy" Reading List

(A little context to start. If you just want book recs, scroll on down to the first image.)

As I’ve been getting into RuneQuest (Wikipedia link), one striking component of the culture and community surrounding the game is that they’re very into the lore of its fictional world, Glorantha. I’m saying this as a comparison to a game like D&D, where the game is spread across tons of settings with no real sense of obligation to keep things in line with earlier editions.

Glorantha’s canon and worldbuilding has been going on since it was published in 1978 without, as far as I can tell, any big reboots. Which means that, unlike D&D, where people are bringing in all kinds of influences and doing direct adaptions of Jane Austen books and whatever, the RuneQuest game remains pretty tightly tied to the original setting. (There have been some exceptions. But not many!)

But since I run games for people who have ADHD or aren’t interested in studying up, I’ve been looking at all kinds of inspiration to drop into the game. Here are 20 novels that are roughly “ancient world” or “Bronze Age” like RuneQuest and deal with people interacting with strange gods, tight communities, and a world without fast overland travel or transferal of information.

I’m presenting them alphabetically by author’s last name.

The Brazen Gambit, Cinnabar Shadows, The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King by Lynn Abbey

I'm sorry for starting this post off with licensed RPG novels, but these are good! And I don't mean "good for licensed RPG novels." I've read tons of them, and most are so bad! But these are actually fun. Good character development in a sword-and-sorcery world. It's also an ecological apocalypse world, with godlike beings oppressing common folks, leading to a lack of technological advancement and knowledge of the past.

The Long Ships by Frans G. Bentsson

Written in the 1940s as a series of novellas, these stories take you on a tour of the Viking-era world, from Europe to the Middle East and beyond. Like a bunch of books on this list, this places them post-Bronze Age, so they're not officially "ancient world." But it gives a big spread of cultures, from the more clan-based Vikings to the bustling metropolises of Turkey. And it doesn't place any of them on any kind of linear advancement scale or whatever other gross way people "rate" cultures.

Tales of Nevèrÿon and Neveryóna by Samuel R. Delany

The master of weird sci-fi and gay historical novels, Chip Delany also wrote a fantasy epic. And it rules! Set on pre-historical(ish) Earth, these books describe the stories that maybe inform the myths we tell today? Dragons and slave revolts! A sort of "What if Game of Thrones was good?" series. Lots of good stuff about how people learn and how understanding expands.

I'm not listing the third book only because it's also a historical look at New York during the AIDS epidemic. It's an amazing book! But it strays from the "ancient world" aesthetic.

Baudolino by Umberto Eco

Another novel expressly set after the Bronze Age (this one starts in the 12th century). BUT it's about Medieval people's interaction with the knowledge they inherited from the past, specifically the myth of Prester John and the works of Herodotus.

I think I keep putting books like this on the list because roleplaying in a fantastical ancient world is not too far off from how Medieval people might have worshipped and referenced works from ancient Rome and non-European places.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf and Moon Witch, Spider King by Marlon James

One of our best living writers! These are fantasy novels expressly set in a fantastical version of ancient/Medieval Africa. The books explore the same events from multiple points of view and are full of cool magic, awesome spirit combat, and a vast number of places and cultures that actively deconstructs most games's portrayal of fantasy Africa as a homogeneous place.

The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth

I think Kingsnorth has been outted as a sort of eco-fascist? I totally believe it, so feel free to skip this one. It's a historical novel set in England in 1066, as the Normans invade from France. It's written in a faux Middle English language and focuses on the lower classes and how they try to resist the invasion. A good reminder that "Medieval culture" (and especially the Renaissance as a time that "culture advanced") is often based on certain classes of society, such as rich people and/or men.

Iceland's Bell by Halldór Laxness

Speaking of how class intersects with technological advancement, this book is set in the 18th century, but it focuses on Iceland at a time when it was ruled by Denmark, and the lower classes there were under an enforced poverty. It's a book about how a rich Icelander was trying to recover the stories of his people in order to create a sense of national identity and resistance. But it's also a story about how a destitute man acts like a total weirdo when he's not allowed to fish in his own waters and is cut off from understanding his place in history.

The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie

A big part of RuneQuest is people interacting with and enacting their gods. That's what this book is about! And it's about the strange vertigo that comes to people when they try to interact with the impossible timelines that gods exist on. Very good stuff.

Night's Master and Death's Master by Tanith Lee

Ostensibly set on Earth back when it was flat and demons roamed the world, which is basically RuneQuest. Sort of like a series of hornier, gay bibles? With lots of gender fuckery, fun sex, and cool monsters.

Circe by Madeline Miller

The story of the witch from The Odyssey, told from her point of view. Beautiful prose, tragic and beautiful characters, and a great share of mythical strangeness. Perfect if you want to learn how to run NPCs that are adversaries without being shallowly evil.

Ronia, the Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren

Semi-Medieval again, but low class and vague enough that it could exist throughout ancient history. The daughter of a robber grows up in a tower full of robbers and generally has a wonderful time. Lots of weird monsters live in the woods, and there's a great starcrossed romance with someone from a rival robber gang. Perfect inspiration if you're running some cattle-raiding runs in RuneQuest; this is how to make robbers fun and sympathetic.

Read the book, watch the 1984 Swedish movie (which includes a great comedic scene of full-frontal dudity), and then watch the Studio Ghibli series.

A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar

Set in a world of pepper farmers and religious fanatics who worship a mysterious inscribed stone, these books do a great job of showing how people might interact with religion, rival cults, and mystery rites. It also portrays literacy and learning to read in places where it's gated behind social gatekeeping. And once again, the prose is beautiful.

The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola

The first African novel published in English outside of Africa, The Palm-Wine Drinkard is a funny, hallucinogenic story about getting drunk, stumbling through weird landscapes, and encountering fantastical spirits and people.

Tutuola also wrote My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, the inspiration for the famous(?) David Byrne/Brian Eno album. I haven't read it yet, but I'm keeping an eye out!

The Green Pearl by Jack Vance

This is a sequel to Lyonesse, which I haven't read because I love staring in the middle of things. Set around a mythical British Isles when Atlantis was still above the sea and part of the group of islands. Some great wizard shit, warring clans, romance, and a wizard whose name is fucking Shimrod (in case you need more convincing).

Those are my 20 novel recommendations! I'm gonna come back to add some nonfiction, comics, and myth resources for running games in fantastical ancient worlds. You can read SpeedRune, my ancient fantasy game, here.

#runequest #books #fiction #fantasy

[prokopetz]

hey! I'm getting back into Tumblr and I only remember your Tumbls and one other so I'm interested to hear who you would suggest following for fun content. Nerdy, funny, any one you like seeing on your dashboard!

Sure thing. I actually don’t follow that many blogs on Tumblr – there’s usually fewer than a hundred active entries on my “Following” list at any given time – and a lot of them are people who wouldn’t appreciate the extra attention, but I have a few I can plug.

Tabletop RPG creators

There are surprisingly few RPG creators on Tumblr, at least openly – though I'm sure there are many more who prefer to keep their Tumblr identities separate from their work! Those whom I follow include:

@jennamoran – Dr. Moran likely needs little introduction for most who follow this blog; creator of Nobilis, Glitch, and Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine.

@jdragsky – Founder of Possum Creek Games, and creator of Sleepaway, Wanderhome, and the forthcoming Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast.

@nekoewen – Creator of a truly vast number of smaller games, most notably the West End Games Ghostbusters retroclone Spooktacular, and also 100% to blame for my obsession with d66 tables.

@open-sketchbook – Author of many of my favourite games, including Double or Nothing, Unbelievable Macho Bullshit, and their current magnum opus, Flying Circus.

@orbitaldropkick – Putting them under tabletop RPGs may be burying the lede, as they’re also the author of Kill Six Billion Demons, but we know what we’re here for. Lead designer of Lancer.

Artists

These are mostly (but not exclusively) folks I’ve worked with in the past on my own tabletop RPG projects; many currently accept commissions if you’ve got a project of your own the works:

@artbyprophet – Contributing artist for Costume Fairy Adventures.

@artkaninchenbau – Contributor to Cerebos: The Crystal City and cover artist for Gaming with Godot.

@catbatart – A frequent contributor to various tabletop RPGs, including a forthcoming project under my own banner that I’m not ready to discuss just yet.

@dizzimitzi – Contributing artist for Costume Fairy Adventures.

@fungii – Contributing artist for Costume Fairy Adventures.

@mimimariet – Contributing artist for Costume Fairy Adventures.

@mooncalfe-art – If you’re into older tabletop RPGs, you may know her as one of the original artists for Exalted; otherwise, her graphic novels like Shadoweyes and Wet Moon are probably more familiar.

@pencilbrony – Cover artist and graphic designer for the forthcoming Space Gerbils [working title].

@theshitpostcalligrapher – Their main thing on Tumblr is (as the name suggests) calligraphic renderings of trending shitposts, though their full repertoire is much broader. Cover artist for To Serve.

@tredlocity – Creator of the webcomic Val and Isaac and occasional tabletop RPG artist, though I haven’t worked with them personally.

Video Games

Some video game creator blogs, some blogs about video games:

@hollowtones – A streamer who’s participated in several popular projects, including Half-Life VR but the AI Is Self-Aware, though on Tumblr she’s probably better known for a certain post about frogs.

@orteil42 – Creator of Cookie Clicker. If you’re familiar with that game’s sense of humour, you know what to expect here.

@ponett – Creator of the forthcoming Super Lesbian Animal RPG.

@snapscube – A voice actor best known for “abridged” versions of popular video game cutscenes. You know the “Dr. Eggman pissing on the moon” meme? That’s from their podcast.

@suppermariobroth – Oddball and often deeply obscure trivia about Super Mario games, as well as related franchises.

Other

@seatsafetyswitch – Frequently surrealist microfiction, with a strange preoccupation with shitty old cars.

#tumblr #blogging #social media #violence metion #death mention #swearing

[lunariamv]

Doom Stones is a horror visual novel/adventure game created with RPG Maker 2000. The game style is inspired from Charon/Nekofuji Kaoru.

Yuuka, a shy and softspoken girl, loses herself when her best friend Souta passes away. One day, she's given a chance to redo the night his life was taken. Perhaps this time, she'll save him.

This is an authentic serious charon-esque game following the formula, presented by me.

⚠️ Before venturing into any of my works, please heed my disclaimer/rules;; I don't want obstructive people engaging with me or my content.

⚠️Disclaimer ⚠️

⚠️This game contains violent and grotesque depictions, as well as dark themes. Please do not play the game if you are sensitive to this type of material. ⚠️

⚠️Rating: 17+ ⚠️

⚠️Separate fiction from reality + Separate art from the artist -- I do not condone any dark content/themes depicted in my works. Any works done in fiction should not be adapted to real life. ⚠️

Download

❖ Download link

❖ Mirror link

RPG Maker 2000 RTP is required for the game to run. Download link here and in the readme file.

(Chrome or windows may block usage of these programs, but these are safe to ignore.)

Platform and Troubleshooting

The game's engine only works for windows, but EasyRPG can used in it's place. May not be perfect. Instructions in the readme file.

Further troubleshooting instructions are in the readme file. Expect possible errors or the game never running at all, since RPG Maker 2000 is outdated software.

Gameplay Notes

❖ The game is a horror adventure rpg with 8 endings in total. A spoiler-free guide to the different endings is in the readme. (Video Walkthrough here)

Usage Notes

Do not edit, repost, or sell assets from the game without permission!!

Fanworks and videos of the content are allowed, but do not directly use assets from the game to make them. (YT Thumbnails are fine, but modifying the game to post or claim assets as your own is not.)

My email is here, and in the readme for comments and concerns. Please only contact me if there are mild errors such as spelling. Do not contact me regarding troubleshooting errors. Go through the readme instructions, but expect that the game might not work, since RPG Maker 2000 is outdated.

♡ Games Masterlist

♡ Blog (with extra game info)

Screenshots

#yandere #yandere oc #male yandere #rpg maker 2000 #rpg maker horror #rpg horror #tw dark content #tw dark themes #charon games #charon #gamestuff #rpggamestuff

[theresattrpgforthat]

THEME: The Locked Tomb

I’m in love with The Locked Tomb Series by Tamsyn Muir, and I know I’m not the only one! For that I am extremely grateful, because there’s quite a few ttrpg designers who also love The Locked Tomb, and have designed games meant to evoke the themes or setting of the novels. Here’s a few of my favourites!

The Serpent and the Spider, by Junk Food Games.

The Serpent and The Spider is a tiny ttrpg for 2 players. One player takes the role of The Serpent, a charismatic sword-wielder. The other player takes the role of The Spider, a highly intelligent necromancer.

Your souls are bonded together. You will fight against corrupt corporations and explore your relationship.

Note that this game has references to violence, death, combat, and implied self-harm. To play the game, you need something to write with, two 4-sided dice, and two 8-sided dice.

I’ve talked about this game before as a duet game. This is probably the best game for exploring the relationship between a necromancer and their cavalier, because it’s designed to be played just between two people. It includes 9 session prompts (again, a tribute to the Nine Houses), and presents you with a setting that is inspired by The Locked Tomb while still allowing you as a pair to fill in details that will make the game work for you.

Thirsty Space Necromancers, by Understory Games.

Thirsty Space Necromancers is a Thirsty Sword Lesbians supplement based on The Locked Tomb books by Tamsyn Muir. It's Gideon the Ninth as a Powered by the Apocalypse RPG.

You play as Necromancers and Cavaliers in a space-faring culture. Paired and trained to fight together, you will solve mysteries and fight ghosts, and probably other necromancers, as you explore new planets. 

This is a game that requires another game to run, but considering the tagline of Gideon the Ninth as “Lesbian Necromancers in Space”, Thirsty Sword Lesbians sounds like another great match for this kind of game. TSL focuses on love and relationships, and is also great for telling grand, epic stories. I’m interested in the additional rules to add the Dead to your game, as well as how the game plays when each player has a counterpart that they’re responsible for and/or devoted to, especially since multiple players can choose The Cavalier, while each Necromancer playbook is separate.

(Understory Games also has a collection of Locked Tomb fan rpgs, where I got most of my recommendations from!)

Heart of the Emperor, by deathmeetauthor.

Heart of the Emperor is a hack of Monsterhearts 2, centred in Tamsyn Muir's The Locked Tomb series. Rather than playing a cohort of teenagers who are secretly monsters, you may be playing a soldier of the Cohort, a teenager, or openly be a monster—perhaps even all three!

The characters of Gideon the Ninth etc. are lonely, brokenhearted, and struggle to communicate their needs and feelings, all of which are perfect for a Monsterhearts game. As with many Powered by the Apocalypse games, the focus is on how the characters relate to each-other, whether that means getting into fights, horribly misinterpreting what your crush/rival says, or uncovering deliciously horrifying secrets that will fundamentally change how you see the world. The scope of this game will be more personal than Thirsty Sword Lesbians - the future of the world isn't quite as important as your future with the the people around you.

The Empire Undying, by Glaive Guisarme Games.

You climb aboard the shuttle which is intended to convey you off this dingy planet. Embedded in the metal walls of the shuttle are bones, sun-bleached and carved with innumerable runes of protection. The only seats in the shuttle seem comfortable enough, although they have the familiar texture of human-flesh leather, tattooed over and over in a crabbed, spiky hand.

It fucking sucks. Just an abysmal experience, and the chairs make your ass hurt after like ten minutes. But if you’re going to be a necromancer there’s a whole, like, aesthetic to deal with. 

Hope you like skulls, fucker.

There are two sorts of people that matter in the decrepit star empire: the necromancers who create the undead abominations upon whose skeletal backs civilization rests, and the knights whose sword duty is to defend the necromancers from undead abominations which aren't behaving right now. 

In this game, you will play a group of necromancers and knights, stuck in some corner of the vast empire, attempting to solve a mystery that is, in turn, attempting to kill you all. The bad kind of "kill," the sort you don't bounce back from. Explore ancient sites and forgotten ruins, unravel conspiracies which have endured for millennia, and make out with one another, because you are hot and hurt and surrounded by bones so you have to get that tension out somehow. 

Tone-wise, this game slaps. Mechanically, I like that it’s not too complex (it borrows from Lasers and Feelings) while still leaning into the number 9, which is heavily significant in The Locked Tomb. It has players explore relationships, while not necessarily expecting them to pair up - instead, you have to decide how another person’s character has power over you, which also feel so much like The Locked Tomb (think about Dulcinea’s relationship to Gideon, or the relationship between the Fifth House and the Fourth House). There’s so much to this game and it’s not even that big! If you want something that feels like it was written by Gideon herself, I’d definitely recommend checking this out.

In Extremis, by Keganexe.

In Extremis is a tabletop roleplaying game designed for 2-6 players, about fighting back the man using necromancy, that uses the LUMEN system by Spencer Campbell. Inspired by The Locked Tomb trilogy, players take on the role of exceptionally powerful witches who use their mastery of life, death, and the human condition to keep them and their own safe from other planetary invaders who want to steal their land.

As a Necromancer, you are one of a handful of hideously powerful death witches that protect the planet Hecate, the final holdout for The Coven, from the ever encroaching war of the Corvus Dominion. 

In Extremis differs greatly from some of the games on this list because it focuses on combat, rather than on relationships. The game is inspired by the Locked Tomb, but doesn’t seek to replicate it. All of the players are necromancers, and all of the players are built for combat. You will go up against a terrible, powerful foe, while you yourselves are small in number, although extremely powerful. I appreciate the attempt to make this legally distinct from The Locked Tomb - there’s enough here to absolutely appeal to fans of the series, but the creator has given themselves enough license to focus on the themes of this series that appeals to theme - particularly the theme of kicking ass.

Games I’ve Recommended in the Past

Tomb Candles, by deecity. (A hack of Ten Candles)

#the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #dnd #tabletop games #game recommendations #necromancy #indie ttrpgs

[open-hearth-rpg]

Links: Great RPG Mechanics #RPGMechanics: Week Eight

I dig Forged in the Dark– it’s an interesting system which people have tuned in many different ways. It is tight, with many innovations– several of which I’ve talked about earlier on these lists. But FitD's tightness means that it can be challenging to balance the mechanics. Some adaptations, like Scum & Villainy and Hack the Planet, hew close to the original with mainly a reskin and a couple of tweaks. 

Others dig in and make more substantive changes, like Songs for the Dusk and Vergence. Some Forged in the Dark reworkings are excellent but still have some gaps in the mechanical balance. For example, I love Mountain Home. It’s a strong contender for my fav game of the year. But in MH, stress acts as a significant restriction on player choices. It's a currency you're often spending to resist bad results and there’s few mechanics to help clear that until the end of the year. It’s playable, but the game needs a couple of additional options (new buildings, GM rewards) to help offset that. A minor tweak could make things stronger. That experience with Mountain Home colored our thinking about Forged in the Dark games.

So when we started our Girl by Moonlight campaign my group expressed skepticism about the mechanics. GBM makes some major changes from the Forged baseline. In particular characters have so few action dots– meaning that any roll would be few dice, which in turn meant they’d either be constantly taking poisoned promises or resisting consequences. There were grumbles but we decided to give it a try. 

And it works– it works really well, all thanks to Links. We don't have the issues we imagined. Girl by Moonlight's Links system creates dynamic, interactive play with a lot of choices. Plus, in a way we couldn’t see before we started playing, it adds new and novel space for roleplaying. FitD is sometimes criticized for not offering obvious space for role-play and character interaction. Girl by Moonlight builds that in. 

In play, you can spend links to let you or the named linked protagonist regain 2 stress. You can also spend them to give +1d to that named protag or to have them ignore 1 harm tag temporarily. Finally you can, in certain circumstances, spend it to try to keep them from falling into the negative state called eclipse. In play, this changes up things dramatically– people are spending links to help one another and describing what they do to connect. It supplements the stress mechanics while making actions feel possible. The small number of action dots don't matter as much. Links clear after each mission so you want to spend them during that phase. 

But the other half of the link system is what really makes it hum. You create links during downtime by using the Make Connections action. You choose to do something with another PC to build your relationship with them. There’s a roll made, with a 1-3 giving two links; a 4-5 giving three; and a 6 giving four. When you Make Connections, your targeted player writes those down. This becomes a crucial action in Downtime, replacing Recover Stress from base Forged in the Dark. Choosing another downtime action has to be balanced against this one– making for interesting tension when other things need to get done. 

But here’s the key– Making Connections pushes for role-playing. It offers moments where characters can interact with other PCs. They can also take links with NPCs (and their mecha Engines in the “On a Sea of Stars” framework). That’s meant that we’ve spent entire sessions– profitably letting these scenes breathe and just doing downtime. It is amazing and dynamite. 

The thing that strikes me is how much I couldn’t see this interaction and dynamic just from reading the rules. It was only once we got to playing that I understood exactly why GBM made these choices and what impact they had.

#ttrpg #rpg #rpg mechanics

[livingmydreamlife5555]

MHA Dr #3

Name: Apollo Kamiyama

Birthday: January 24th

Height: 5'7"

Appearance: Low-key just a pretty boy. Imma add some art breeder photos at the bottom for more visuals of like my facial features. I combined multiple ones into a few that I liked. But yeah, I'm really pretty and I have freckles and curly hair 😻😻 me and midoriya twinning 🫶🏾🫶🏾 scripted that I remind people of the actual God Apollo if he was a human on Earth

Backstory: This one is a very interesting backstory lol. Long story short, my parents were devoted worshippers of the Greek gods. To show their devotion, they allowed the gods to bless me, aka their first child. So I have the blessings of the gods, like Percy Jackson type blessings, as if I were their child. They named me Apollo in honor of the first god they worked with. But that's not all 😏. They wanted me to become one of the greatest heroes. I was born with no quirk, so they gave me an advanced version of my parents quirks with some blessings of course. And that's how you get the gamer system, but the version from the web novel "Solo Leveling". I was born in Nigeria, but moved to America and did school there. I moved to Japan to do highschool at UA of course 💪🏾💪🏾. Don't know if imma actually script siblings, I already have some here 😭

Quirk: My life is mostly like a RPG player. I have quests I receive from the 12 gods themselves and some others. I can do anything a RPG player can do. The gods can open gates like in the webnovel solo leveling which the Gods open the gates to help me get stronger, with mythical greek monsters too. After my first gate, which the Gods use to test me, I get the skill shadow extraction, like from solo leveling. Anytime I defeat a monster, I can resurrect them to join my army under my command. In the original they are black and blue, but I scripted them to white and gold. The gates that the gods spawn can only be seen by me, and if I want others to see them then they could. The blessings I got from the gods show up as passive skills in my system (This whole quirk makes more sense if you read up on the main character's power).

Voice claim: Probably more higher than I sound in my other realities. I scripted something around Kenma Asmodeus (obey me), and Milo thatch combined. Just soft, pretty and angelic. "I sound like a beautiful tune from the instruments that the God Apollo would perfectly play" quite literally from my script

Extra info-

here are all the blessings and what they actually do (I don't get them all at once. There are six I get first, then I get the rest later on. They can grow from there too)

Zeus ⚡- power to control all elements (I start with the 4 basics, before moving into Lightning, metal, etc.)

Hera 🦚 - blessed with a loving relationship in my family

Poseidon 🔱 - power to breath underwater and and summon water beings on command

Hades 💀 - (couldn't really decide on one from him. But just something not over the top.)

Aphrodite 🦪 - the gift of absolute beauty and power to uncover the emotions hidden deep in one's soul

Apollo ☀️ - blessed with the voice of an angel and the powers of healing. My smile is like a beacon of light and shall illuminate the darkest of nights and usher hope for anyone.

Artemis 🌙 - blessed with the instincts of the best hunter, when needed. I shall radiate with calming light, soothing the ones around me.

Athena 🫒 - blessed with the gift of knowledge and learning capabilities. I can solve any puzzles and learn anything very quickly.

Hephaestus ⚒️ - blessed with the ability to forge anything with the right materials. I know how to use any weapon.

Hestia 🔥 - blessed with the burning desire to bring justice and gifted with the eternal flame.

Hermes 🪽 - blessed with the ability to tell if a person is pure of heart and tell if they are lying. I have the movements of water and can build up to the speed of light.

Demeter 🌿 - blessed with the power to control plant life and animals. Anywhere I go, the place shall prosper

Dionysus 🍷 - blessed with the ability to create anything only when in need. I can always find food

Ares ⚔️ - blessed with the power to solve any crisis and instill chaos when needed.

i have a more androgynous beauty in this Dr. Got a lot of beauty from Aphrodite of course 🙏🏾

I can also communicate with the gods as well and they come like little inboxes in my gamer systems.

I might script that we are rich, but just depends on how I'm feeling.

I have the same skills from the other drs obviously.

Welp that's it for this reality. This is also a really good way to reconnect with myself in my other realities too. Below are the art breeder pics of me. One more to gooo

-Honey out 🍯🍯🍯

#manifesting #reality shift #anti shifters dni #black shifters #bnha shifting #mha shifting #my hero academia reality shifting #reality shifter #reality shifting #shiftblr #shifter #shifters #shiftinconsciousness #shifting #shifting antis dni #shifting blog #shifting community #shifting consciousness #shifting motivation #shifting realities #shifting reality #shifting scenarios #shifting script #shifting to mha #shifting tumblr #shiftingrealities #shifttok #Honey dr 🍯

[neonghostcat]

Brain Overflow

You know how in my last 'state of the author' post I said I could feel the urge to write coming back?

Oh, it has.

It's terribly inconvenient too. I'm going to tell you a little about some of the things I've been thinking of and then whine/wibble a tiny bit if you click through to behind the cut. (You don't have to read the last bit!)

I've written down three different SVSSS (LiuShen) ideas in the last couple of weeks, added a few thoughts to older ideas, made a mental note of possible Cultivate extras, and just refused to write down others so as not to encourage rampant plot bunny breeding.

But let me tell you about a few of them because I'm hoping it reduces the urge to work on them better than just typing up notes.

The Lady Blackbird fusion Not sure what Lady Blackbird is? Well, it's a free tabletop rpg that you can download here. But the TL;DR is, "Sort of like steampunk Star Wars: A New Hope + Firefly + potential Jane Austen novel, if you want." I'll just C&P the pitch here: Lady Blackbird is an Imperial noble fleeing from an arranged marriage to be with her secret lover, the pirate king Uriah Flint. To reunite with him, she has hired a notorious smuggler and the crew of his skyship, The Owl. However, The Owl has been captured by an Imperial cruiser. How will Lady Blackbird and the others escape? What dangers lie in their path on the way to the pirate king’s lair? Can you see where this is going? (Actually, probably not your first thought, no.) We start with Shen Yuan transmigrated in a xianxia-by-way-of-steampunk gown, sitting in a jail cell with several men, a teenage boy, and a veiled teenage girl. System helpfully informs him that he is now "Lady" Blackbird, on the run to end up in the arms of Pirate King Mobei-Jun. His cell-mates are, as follows: Smuggler Captain Liu Qingge, Lady Blackbird's personal bodyguard Liu Mingyan who suggested her brother when LB said she wanted to escape, the ship's mechanic Shang Qinghua, the ship's doctor Mu Qingfang (or they pick him up later, I haven't decided), and "a goblin named BingBing". While SY is busy freaking out that System can't fool him - that's the Protagonist, Luo Binghe!!! wtf!!! System says "later, loser" and more-or-less abandons him (though still employing an OOC ban). So now you can probably see where this is going, lol. It involves at least a brief period where SY has to crossdress and pretend to be one of Binghe's future wives - a fiancée/wife of Mobei-Jun as Liu Qingge gets very conflicted feelings about his troublesome passenger. Featuring lots of Cumplane friendship, sassy MQF (as a treat), teenage smirking (likely aided and abetted by the adults), and space whales (naturally). I have not yet fully decided if the story Shen Yuan read was PIDW and now he has to figure out how the infiltration of "space with gears on it" into his xianxia has fucked up what he and Airplane know, or if the story was something like "Proud Immortal Starlit Way" and it was always like that. (Thoughts?) ---

The "SY Bodysnatches MQF" idea What it says on the tin... SY accidentally ends up in MQF's body instead of SQQ's. Only MQF isn't gone - he remains. This occurs directly before the Demonic Invasion and double qi deviation part of the plot and they rush back to the sect to deal with that. Then things get messy while they conspire to get SY his own body. Featuring: An extremely confused Liu Qingge, eventual Shenbros, and aro-ace MQF being very bemused at all times. ---

The "LQG Gets De-Aged/Age-Regressed" idea As you can guess: LQG gets age-regressed. This happens in Lingxi Caves instead of his death-by-deviation. He latches onto SY-SQQ and SY-SQQ is helpless to do anything but take the cute kid in. Featuring: BingLiu friendship, possibly Bing-other disciples friendship, but mostly establishing bro-code that makes Binghe switch his infatuation with SY-SQQ into family feelings as soon as LQG regains his adult body and it becomes clear that LiuShen is happening. ----

This is along with: Joint Custody (LiuShen), my SJ-SQQ second-chance redemption fic (LiuShen and LiuJiu, but different LQGs), a peak lords ascension fic using Cultivate's backstory (LiuJiu), a LiuShen timeloop fic, and at least another half a dozen fic ideas sitting in the hopper that aren't nearly as developed/that I am not burning to write yet.

I'd love to know which ideas you guys are most interested in. ;) Joint Custody is still next regardless and I'll probably not be working on either of the LiuJiu fics in the near future because they are definitely 100k+ territory and I'm still not ready for that. But knowing people are hype for something keeps me hype. ;3

I'll probably be in this fandom awhile, y'all. Please send help.

Sadly, I can't work on any of them yet, because I have over 2,600 messages in my inbox waiting for me to respond to. (This is not a humble brag - this is thousand-yard-stare territory. It was somewhere over 3000 for awhile until I started making a list of people who generally only left emojis or thanks and let them know that I was going to just thank them for all of them in one email so they didn't peppered by replies in kind.)

Not that I'm complaining about them, because I missed replying to comments so much (it's genuinely one of my favorite parts about writing fanfic), but it's still a lot and even if I could manage 100 replies a day (which for mental health reasons, I really can't), it's going to take awhile.

RIP.

More importantly - I hope you are well! 🌼

#fic planning

[ludcake]

[Image Caption: A screenshot from the Night's Watch sourcebook for the official A Song of Ice and Fire Tabletop Roleplaying Game. It says:

Sexuality & the Wall Men come to the Wall for their own reasons. Some come because they have no choice, some because they have no other option, and some for no reason that others can discern. The Game of Thrones is about loyalties, bloodlines, and inheritance. Legacies are power, and matrimony and progeny is how these things are secured. That sort of life is not ideal for everyone, though. In the oath of the Night’s Watch, it states: “I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children.” Short of a maester’s chain, the Watch is nearly the only group in Westeros where both highborn and common men who do not want a wife or children can live unpressured by society, not thought of as strange or somehow deviant for not wishing to (or being unable to) provide an heir. Sex with women is prohibited to the extent that it forms external ties; the Watch tends to turn a blind eye to sexual expression that precludes those possibilities, whether it’s visiting girls in Mole’s Town, romancing free folk women, or same-sex relationships between brothers. It is clear from the novels that homosexuality is not viewed in anything like the way modern society sees them. Close same-sex relationships are common and expected throughout society. Physical intimacy in those relationships is also common and expected. Sexual intimacy is an act, not an identity, and exists apart from and alongside same-sex bonding within Westerosi society. So long as personal attachments and preferences don’t get in the way of the Game of Thrones, it’s no one’s business—and on the Wall, the Game of Thrones is largely moot. In short, however a man stays warm on the Wall is, frankly, his own business, so long as all parties are consenting. There are more important things to worry about when the Long Night comes.]

I don't know who needs to read this but. the official books for the ASOIAF RPG kind of rock. It's dubious enough canon that the wiki refuses to accept it but. This is real to me. This is the most gay rep we've had in any worldbuilding thing and by god I'm holding onto it

#asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #.txt #theres also some talk about the possibility of an au with a separate order of the nights watch for women #the campaign guide also has a toooooon of worldbuilding that is more real than any twoiaf bs to me

[funishment-time]

what i would personally want from another DR game

(note: not all at once, since some of these are Mutually Exclusive in fact ha)

realistically:

preferably not a Killing Game. this sounds like Blasphemy but DR was never "about" Killing Games. i'll accept it if it happens, but i'll be Very Skeptical. there's plenty to say about that universe and its themes without throwing another new 16 into the mix. leave that to the Fangans, as i think only Fans can produce something that feels fully "new" w/r/t Killing Games now

preferably uses mostly characters we already know with some great additions. a la UDG

could be serious or a spinoff. racing game, RPG, rhythm game, fighting game, game where we use the Kumas like Pokemon...

if a spinoff, would prefer it still has something of a Narrative to it where everyone's somewhat in character, even if it's silly. think Usami forcing Kamukura to participate in Dangan Kart and he does because he's Bored or some dumb shit like that. give me that Stupid Content

just...another game with Kodaka's involvement specifically. this is filed under "realistically" because Kodaka has recently stated he would like to do it, and that after v3, he was on break from Danganronpa, not Done With It 5ever. considering he still does Birthday Posts and constantly answers questions about DR, he is clearly quite attached still, but ultimately by his own admission it's up to Spikechun

non-realistically:

End of HPA/adjacent timeline. IF, Everyone Is Here UTDP/Summer Camp etc

as a corollary to the above, would prefer that it is not V3's timeline. and V3 is, in fact, a Separate Timeline/"setting reset" according to Kodaka. it is not a retcon/continuation of previous games. BUT: i think that world would be best explored in novels/manga via the Rantaro series Kodaka wanted to do. BUT: i think if it is explored, it will be in a game

further: would prefer an Everyone Is Here game. it would unite the fandom, from old-time fans to folks who came in mostly thru V3 and stick to it

however, of these personal wish fulfillment settings, i think the most realistic of them is an IF-like timeline, esp if released on the 15th or 20th anniversaries. what better way to Celebrate than with everyone from DR1 being alive

Kyoko game that's like Ace Attorney because i don't know it'd just be funny. can you imagine. can we use Komaru to channel Yui

i want a Mukuro game but that's not going to Happen

unless???

???:

female protagonist that lives. for real this time. could be a new one or not but the Universe Needs Balance. Komaru and Kaede need one more for their team!!!

a UDG-type game in that it Expands on an existing character who desperately needed it. this is under ??? because i imagine no one expected Toko to get her own game that transformed her from kind of a Joke Character into a Fully Fledged Baby. even Kodaka admits he didn't know what to do with her in the latter half of DR1, and she became one of the most Beloved Girls in the franchise in her game

Miu:

Miu

please Kodaka

give her the Arc she deserves

pls............

#danganronpa

[thydungeongal]

this is not a review of Speedrun RPG by Frédéric Marin

It's just me putting into words something that reading it made me think:

As a whole, I really like Speedrun RPG. The idea of presenting the action of speedrunning games as something to do in a tabletop RPG is novel and interesting. It also acts as a brief primer of speedrun vocabulary and the most typical types of speedruns.

What I think it struggles with is the execution: to facilitate the idea of speedrunning any RPG module the group has already played, the game allows players to use common strategies developed in video game speedrunning, including bunnyhopping and going out of bounds. This is slightly disappointing to me, because to me it seems a somewhat inaccurate translation of the language of another medium into a different one.

I absolutely do not think it's by any means a bad product and I think I even understand why Marin went for this approach: as a general framework that can be applied to any game this one does work, and the idea of being able to go out of bounds to skip the entire module and get straight into Strahd's room and then inject arbitrary code into the game to make sure he only has 1 HP is, like, really funny, but I feel it underutilizes the language of the medium it is working in. Having said that, I am fully aware that asking for a product of this size and scope to provide an universal framework for finding actual speedrun strategies in RPGs is a tall order.

But yeah, as it exists Speedrun RPG is still a fantastic product that allows one to inject the humor inherent in a bunch of assholes bunnyhopping and sequence-breaking their way through a video game into a tabletop format. That in and of itself is already really fun. I think there is definitely a lot that can still be done within the space paved by Speedrun RPG and that by itself is already a great achievement.